[Pete Hill]

Hi Jan,

of the thumbnails of book covers you posted, the first one has its image taken (as a section) from a larger painting by the late, great British aviation painter, Frank Wootton, a real pioneer of the genre.
Its a great shame that the art of illustration for book covers has become so de-valued. I have a friend who works in book publishing and she told me that nowadays there is an unfortunate stigma attached to it. Most people employed in that industry now see hand-painted illustration as fit only for the covers of childrens books or trashy romance novels. To employ such for a book intended for an adult readership is too often viewed as being old-fashioned, quaint and twee.
So therefore, publishers of recent books on the air-war of WW1 simply rely on photographs to illustrate their book-covers which is far cheaper, simpler and quicker than employing a professional illustrator.
Unfortunately, sometimes they don't even bother to do any research and simply plonk any old photo on the cover. Hence the recent book on the opening battle of WW1 - "Ardennes 1914" has, on the cover of the hardback edition, a well-known photograph from the battle of Verdun, taken two years after the battle on which this book is about.
If book publishers do decide to employ a painting for the cover, they can simply re-print an old one rather than go to the expense of hiring an artist to produce something new. Again, research as to the relevance of the image to the text of the book is sometimes not a priority. Thus, the current paperback editon of V.M Yeates' 'Winged Victory' has a painting of an SE5a being chased by a Roland two-seater on the cover whereas the squadron depicted in the story flies Camels and Rolands aren't even mentioned. Another example is the recent paperback editon of Gordon Prange's 'Miracle at Midway' whose cover features a wartime painting of a Hellcat and late model Zero, neither of which flew until at least a year after the battle in question.
Its a great shame that the wonderful art of illustration is being lost to a large degree, at least in the book world (magazines are still doing their bit, thankfully). The term Graphic artist has been replaced by Graphic designer and their craft is now almost exclusively photographic and computer-generated. A very successful Melbourne-based Graphic designer once confided to me that he couldn't even draw a circle free-handed yet he was one of the industry's most sought-after due to his computer-skills. Even hand-painted illustrations for architectural proposals are being replaced by computer-generated images.
Thank you to everyone who has posted these images to remind us of a lost art! Pete